


Preliminary Aptitude

by emeralddarkness



Category: Batman Beyond, DC Animated Universe
Genre: Bruce didn't just give Terry the job, Early canon, Gen, It's never that easy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 05:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1417354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeralddarkness/pseuds/emeralddarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terry had to earn his ears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Preliminary Aptitude

It was something like hell.

-

Back in the beginning, Dad-just-died-no-time-to-think, when he found the Batcave and then swiped the suit like some kind of twip (he hadn’t known what he was letting himself in for then, now had he) and then run off with all sorts of pretensions to being _Batman-_

Back in the beginning, when he was still high off adrenaline in the sort of way he hadn’t been for years (but for the right reasons this time), when he’d gone back home for the first time since putting on the suit still shaking from having almost just died, and then almost having just died again and again - about 12 near-death experiences in under an hour; it was ridiculous, it was exhilarating, it was insane-

Back in the beginning, when _Bruce Wayne_ , who’d been Dad’s almost-boss back when Dad was still alive (didn’t quite count because Mr. Wayne was retired, but he did still own about half the company so it kind of did) had made his offer and stretched out his hand with a challenge in his eye and a smile on his face and Terry had reached back before considering because honestly, who would need to _consider_ it-

Well, back _then_ , Terry maybe hadn’t thought things through.

-

The idea that there was more to being Batman than running around Gotham in a high-tech unitard wasn’t one that had occurred to Terry at first. The suit itself was part of that. It was a miracle – black and cherry red and amazing, _still_ cutting edge even after 20 years collecting dust. It had made him feel, when he’d first put it on, like he could do anything if he could just figure out what the controls to do it were. Like the suit was Batman and he was just along for the ride or something. Everything had just been so easy. He could fly, and could listen to conversations through walls, he could hang upside down just by deciding he wanted to, he could probably chuck around tanks if he felt like it, he’d been so strong. It had been so slagging _easy_. But that wasn’t the point, the point was that no matter how incredible the suit was it was, in the end, just some piece of hardware – and here he was proposing to be Batman, _The_ Batman. And he hadn’t known what he’d let himself in for.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to getting in fights. Cuts, bruises – sure, he’d had enough of them back in the day. He’d run with a pretty rough crowd when he was younger, and had been lucky that he hadn’t broken more bones than he had, or ever dislocated anything, or gotten his teeth knocked out. He’d been lucky that first night too, because when he’d gotten hit the suit had absorbed a great deal of the force of the blows, even when it had been frozen. He’d been hurt, but he’d had worse. It left him with a false sense of confidence – this was easy, this was nothing. That was where he was horribly wrong.

Ironically, if he’d only had the job to handle he would have been right nine times out of ten. It _wouldn’t_ have been that hard. He _would_ have had worse. And when that one time that was so much more than he expected came along, he’d probably have been out of his misery pretty fast, so that wouldn’t have worked out so badly for him either, aside from being dead. But it wasn’t just the job he had to deal with.

It was Bruce.

-

“You’re late, McGinnis.”

Day one. Or, at least, the first day that all this was on the up and up; he figured he shouldn’t count the _first_ day. Terry was already off to a great start.

“Sorry about that,” he’d said as he jumped off the staircase a few feet before it stopped and trotted over. “You locked the clock. I opened it by accident before, so I had to figure out what to do this time.” It seemed like a reasonable explanation, as explanations went, but Bruce didn’t seem impressed by it.

“Doesn't change the fact that you were late."

"Well _yeah_ ," Terry tried, "but—"

"I don't need excuses."

Terry ground his teeth.

"Taking that much time to figure out what should have been a simple riddle will get you killed in this business."

This was when Terry lost his temper for the first time. " _Simple-_ "

"Yes. Simple, McGinnis."

"I didn't know—"

"If you want to do this job, that shouldn't even come close to stopping you for so long. Now come on. We've got to make up for lost time."

So he went. Bruce moved pretty well for a guy with a cane and a limp, but that observation didn’t do much to prepare Terry for what happened next. Maybe a minute later they hit one of the corners of the cave and a little pool that had formed there, with water trickling down the wall to fill it. Terry had looked up to ask now what, and found himself unceremoniously tripped and shoved in face-first. And, as he automatically inhaled water for the beginnings of a yell that he never got out and tried to surface and couldn’t he started to think that maybe this was a mistake, maybe Mr. Bruce Wayne was just nuts and they’d be announcing his corpse on Wednesday’s 7:00 news as a suicide, because after all his dad had just been murdered and he maybe was in trouble again what with the gang connection because it had been a gang who’d murdered Warren and what was actually happening was just too _fragging insane_ -

Things were starting to go black when that pressure on his neck disappeared and Terry erupted back into the air coughing and choking and swearing. Water was pouring out his mouth and nose and "—the fragging _hell_ , Wayne?!?!"

"Quiet. You're wasting air."

Terry opened his mouth to tell Bruce just what he thought of that statement, and of him for making that statement, and of him just in _general_ but found himself unable to as the next second he was forced back under. He inhaled water instead of air again, choked, and maybe a year of wild struggle later blacked out. When he came to he wasn’t underwater any more, which was good, and he didn’t seem to be dead, which was better. Okay. That sorted, he turned over and coughed and vomited up what felt like several gallons of water. His throat and the inside of his nose felt like they’d been scalded.

"What was _that_?" he asked, when he could speak again and trusted himself to do so.

"Pay attention next time," Bruce growled from somewhere behind him. "And learn to hold your breath. You barely broke a minute." Terry, to his credit, managed to keep himself from saying any of the multiple things he felt like saying in response. Instead he just thought them as he struggled to clear the last of the water from his lungs.

-

Next day. Terry woke up sore all over from everything Wayne had made him do - backflips and back handsprings and lateral jumps and vertical jumps and pushups and pull ups and exercises Terry hadn’t known there were names for, all after being drowned until he would have traded a leg for a pair of gills. Bruce had sat there lecturing the whole time, when he wasn’t holding him under water until he passed out (he must get some kind of twisted pleasure out of this) and God, he had _school_. He could have slept for about a week. But no, he couldn’t, because he had Genetics and Trigonometry and World History to learn, and he had to maintain his GPA if he wanted to graduate at all. He managed to wake himself enough to get through the day with about a gallon of coffee, and then after school it was back to Wayne Manor again, where Bruce had changed the lock to the Batcave.

With some effort, Terry managed to keep from just finding a baseball bat that he could take to that slagging clock.

Today, after he managed to get the clock open, there had been a sharp sound that really was nothing like the movies but which turned out to be gunfire. Real live bonafide gunfire, from the sort of guns that hadn’t been in common use for something like thirty years. Terry, despite his background, had never actually been shot at before (at least not shot-shot, with bullet-wielding guns), let alone shot. Until now, anyway, as something that seemed to have roughly the same amount of force as a car hit him in the side. It knocked him down, and so the rest missed him by sheer dumb luck – just as well, because if they’d all hit him he had the feeling he might have passed out again. Terry spent maybe thirty seconds trying to breathe and not throw up again, wondering why he didn’t seem to be bleeding to death, until he heard the click of that _slagging cane_. Bruce limped out of the shadows and looked down at him briefly, then walked down the stairs.

“We need to work on your reflexes. If those hadn’t been rubber bullets, you’d be dead.”

“You treat everyone this nice, or am I special?”

“Everyone doesn’t want to be Batman.”

Terry knew a little about rubber bullets – back when guns had used physical projectiles instead of plasma bursts they’d been used for riot control now and then, because they were supposedly less damaging than metal ones. He hadn’t known, before now, just how much they could still hurt, or how much damage they could still cause. He didn’t have a bullet hole through him, which was good, but he didn’t even _want_ to know how big a bruise he was going to have in a few hours.

“McGinnis! You gonna lie there all day?”

Terry lay still for a minute longer imagining all the things he could say to Bruce Wayne, then slowly peeled himself off the floor and limped down the staircase. “I think you cracked one of my ribs with that stunt,” he’d said as he made it to the cave floor. Bruce had looked over coldly.

“What’s your point?”

Terry lost his temper again. “What’s my-”

“Tape it up. If you were on the streets you wouldn’t even have that luxury.”

So he’d peeled his shirt off and taped his ribs, hissing as he did so. Turned out, after that, that Bruce wanted him to spar. With robots. One of them kicked his bruised side hard enough that if he hadn’t had cracked ribs before, he did now. Terry had screamed in pain and almost blacked out. Bruce sat impassively in his chair.

“Ready to give up yet, McGinnis?”

“ _Frag you._ ” Whatever, _whatever_ , he could do this, he could-

“You gonna let one measly opponent take you down when you’re on the streets?” And Terry had growled and forced himself up and had his ass handed to him again because these weren't _anything_ like fair odds and punching them didn't work like punching people and even their weight was distributed differently until Bruce called his robots off. Somewhere between rounds three and sixteen, and around the eighth lecture about what would get him killed if he tried it outside the cave, Terry had begun to ask yeah about that, what _about_ the streets, crime wasn’t going down while Bruce was back here killing him-

-

Next day.

It was just humiliating to be beaten up by someone about the age of his great-grandfather.

"Technique always wins out over brute force. Remember that, McGinnis." Terry didn't move, he just lay on the floor for a few moments as he struggled to breathe properly and his muscles screamed at him everywhere, muscles he hadn't even known he _had_. Bruce's cane was still resting gently on his breastbone as he silently ran through every curse word he knew about three times and got his breath back. Bruce hadn’t moved when he finally had, so Terry pushed the cane out of the way and then pushed himself to his feet. He wouldn't give up. He could do this. He'd said he was and now he was going to and anyway he could _do_ something for everyone if Bruce would just—

-

Next day.

Terry was beginning to seriously contemplate a study of psychology just to see if he could figure out what the frag was fragging wrong with Bruce Wayne.

-

Next day.

-

Next week now.

What felt like about 38 pots of coffee apparently hadn’t been enough to keep him awake through Spatial Relations; it was probably something of a miracle Ms. Gardener hadn’t noticed. Dana had, and had reached out to worriedly poke him awake several times throughout the class. She’d hit a _nasty_ bruise about two thirds of the way through, which certainly woke him up; he’d only just managed to keep himself from yelling in pain. He couldn’t keep himself from starting badly, which his abs took as an opportunity to remind him of all the pushups and crunches and God knew what else he’d done yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. He wished that if he had to feel like such an overcooked noodle he didn’t have to be such a bruised one.

Dana had run up to his locker after school, mouth twisted a little in concern. “You all right, Ter?”

“Huh?”

“Just…” She looked pointedly down at his hand, which was bandaged up to the wrist. “You’re not going after the Jokerz or anything, are you? They’re too dangerous to-”

Terry could see where this was headed, and started shaking his head before she finished. “No, Dana, I swear I haven’t.” She’d frowned at him worriedly, and lightly touched the bandage, then reached up to cup his cheek.

“Are you doing all right?”

“Dana, I’m fine, really. I just sprained my wrist moving stuff.”

She wasn’t completely sold on the explanation, and he could see that, but even though she didn’t push him on it, he didn’t want to push his luck. “Look, I gotta run- work again.” She’d pulled an unhappy face at that. “Sorry, I know. Hopefully I’ll have some time off soon though, and then we’ll do something together, I promise.”

“I miss you.”

He’d smiled at her in a deliberate attempt to lighten the mood then, with his best crooked, charming grin. “I miss you too, babe. But look at it this way — I'll be able to afford to take you to nicer places. It'll be schway, but that means that right now... Anyway, I'll talk to you later, all right?"

She’d rolled her eyes at him. “It’s not the places, Ter. I just miss hanging out. Call me when you get home, okay?”

He had stood in front of his bathroom mirror that night after he got home and had showered, so exhausted he could barely think, and after a minute actually started examining himself, and trying to count bruises. By this point he was more red or blue or green or yellow than normal _skin_ color, and what little skin wasn’t covered with fresh or fading bruises almost all seemed to be covered in bandages or tape or the red marks tape left or scrapes too shallow to need anything. As he looked at himself he decided that he was actually glad he'd been kicked off the wrestling team. If anyone had told him that he'd be thinking that a few weeks ago when it had happened he probably would have decked them, but really, that uniform didn't hide much, and there was no way he'd be able to keep all of this out of sight if he was still a member of the team. Without wrestling he had a chance, if he never took his jacket off.

So. Being kicked off had apparently been a good thing. That realization seemed vaguely comforting in a weird way as he collapsed into his bed for not-enough-sleep before he had to get up and do this again.

-

Next day.

People could probably hire Bruce as a torturer, he'd be great at it. Every day, now, Terry went and stood in front of Dad's old apartment building, where nobody had gotten around to scrubbing the Ha! Ha! Ha! off the walls yet and stared at the graffiti until he felt sick, just to remind himself why he was doing this. There was a reason, and it was worth it for the reason.

-

And the next day.

-

And the next day.

-

And the three days, all blurred together. He was pretty sure he'd gotten a mild concussion that time. He'd stayed home from school for a day and slept like a dead man.

-

Next day.

-

The day after that, or maybe the day after the day after — it was getting harder to keep track of exactly how long he'd been doing this, since it kind of felt like forever — Terry had broken into the Batcave for the 800 thousandth time. There was Bruce sitting there when he managed it, glaring and steely-eyed and never happy. More training, Bruce said. Poison this time it sounded like—

"Go find someone else to torture, let me go _out_ , do you know how many people get mugged every night in Gotham?!"

"You want to be _Batman_ , McGinnis?" Bruce roared. The old man rarely lifted his voice; when he did, he was terrifying. But Terry was sick of it, sick of everything, and Bruce could yell all he wanted, Terry would only yell back.

"If I didn't, do you really think I'd be putting up with this slag?!"

"Then stop complaining. If you can't handle half of what I did then get out and go home. Take away the suit and _then_ try going out on the streets. See how long you last, a punk kid like you. You wouldn't even make it as Robin—"

This time Terry, finally, was the one who cut Bruce off. His voice was level, but thrummed with controlled violence - a 16 year old had no business looking like a grizzly about to chase you up a mountain and then tear you to shreds, but somehow Terry managed it. "Mr. Wayne. You've got it wrong. You started all wrong, and that's why, but you've got it all wrong.

"See, I'm not a Robin. That's not what I signed up for, that's not what you hired me for. I'm sure Robin was great, but I'm not the fluffy animal sidekick. I'm not a sidekick at all. You brought me here to be Batman, Mr. Wayne, and that's what I'm here for. And Batman doesn't belong in his cave. That's not the _point_. He belongs out putting the bad guys in jail and keeping the good guys from getting their asses handed to them and to keep moms from getting their bags grabbed when all the creds they've got for food are in that purse and there's nothing left in the fridge and keeping drug dealers from finding new kids to turn into crackheads and keeping gangs from driving through the bad neighborhoods with good families with plasma guns and keeping whatever psycho decided to start sticking up banks this week from doing that. _That_ is what Batman is for, Bruce. So just tell me if you're gonna let me do that, or if it's just gonna be more of this slag until you finally manage to kill me. Cause if it's the second, it'd be nice to know that I shouldn't waste any more time here. It's not like I don't have other things I could do.

"If I'm going to be here, I am _going_ to be helping people."

-

Late that night, Batman pulled back on his mask and took to the rooftops and skies for the first time in four decades.

**Author's Note:**

> I am of the opinion that after vowing not to put any young partners at risk ever again and then keeping that vow for 40 years, Bruce was unlikely to offer the suit to the first person who came along as easily as all that. I think he probably offered Terry the job to make him quit, so that he wouldn't even want to try to come back and get the suit again. So that he'd never even want to consider Batman again. Unfortunately (or fortunately, really) for Bruce's grand plans, Terry doesn't actually know the meaning of the word 'quit', so that didn't work out so well for him. But hey. He's Batman. They both are.
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated!


End file.
